As the composer played over his melody for the arranger to take down in musical notes, you may sing, whistle or play your melody on the piano with one finger, for the arranger to take down your song.  All you need give him is the bare outline of your melody.  At best it will be but a forecasting shadow of what he will make out of it.  From it he will make you a “lead-sheet,” the first record of your melody.  Then, if you desire, he will arrange your melody into a piano part, precisely identical in form with any copy of a song you have seen.  With this piano version—­into which the words have been carefully written in their proper places—­you may seek your publisher.

For taking down the melody and making an “ink lead-sheet,” the arranger will charge you from one to two dollars.  For a piano copy he will charge you anywhere from three to ten dollars—­the average price is about five dollars.

2.  Be Sure Your Words and Music Fit Exactly

Here we may draw the second moral from the little scene we witnessed in the song publisher’s room—­this is the big lesson of that scene.  In a word, successful song-writers consider a song not as a lyric and a melody, but as a composite of both.  A successful song is a perfect fusing of both.  The melody writer is not averse to having his melody changed, if by changing it a better song can be made.  And the successful lyric writer is only too glad to change his words, if a hit can be produced.  With the one end in view, they go over their song time after time and change lyrics and melody with ruthless hands until a whistle-making unity rises clear and haunting.

This is what you must now do with your song.  You must bend all your energies to making it a perfect blend of words and music—­a unity so compressed and so compactly lyrical that to take one little note or one little word away would ruin the total effect.

This is why

3.  Purchasing Music for a Song is Seldom Advisable

If you are invited to purchase music for a new song, it is the part of wisdom to refuse—­because only in very rare instances has a successful song been the result of such a method.  The reason is perfectly plain, when you consider that the composer who offers you a melody for a cash price is interested only in the small lump sum he receives.  You are his market.  He does not care anything about the market the music must make for itself, first with a publisher and then with the public.

Therefore, no matter how willing a composer may appear to change his melody to fit your song, scan his proposition with a cynical eye.  On the surface he will make the music fit, but he would be wasting his time if he worked over your lyric and his music to the extent that a composer who is paid by the ultimate success of a song would have to labor.

It is very much better to take your chances with even an inferior melody maker who is as much interested as you are in a final success.  And when you have found a composer, do not quibble about changing your words to fit his music.  And don’t fear to ask him to change his melody, wherever constant work on the song proves that a change is necessary.  It is only by ceaselessly working over both words and melody that a song is turned into a national whistle.